Henry sprinted for about 10 minutes before he finally began to slow down to figure out which direction he was running.
"I know I ran away Water Street. But when I got to that rock I turned.... I think."
Henry wiped ways that tears that were starting to dry to his cheeks and stopped walking.
He spun in a small circle in the middle of a patch of grass in the midst of the woods. Trying to listen for any familiar noise that would tell him where he was.
Henry glanced down at his watch. "Almost 10 am, should be time for the recess bell at the elementary school to sound."
At 10 am on an average work day, he knew that he should be able to hear the production of the mill across the river, traffic driving up and down Water Street. If he was close enough to the edge of the woods, he should be able to hear the drive-thru of the coffee shop.
Henry heard nothing.
There were no birds singing. No cars were driving. Only the faint muffled cries of the monsters that have taken over the town.
He continued to spin in a slow circle, frantically looking for a sign that would point him in the right direction. Toward some safety or familiar place where he could hide.
He knew that he could not spend any time in one spot. He had a feeling that Trevor, the terrifying mechanic from Water Street was going to be following him.
Through the trees to his left, Henry saw a shimmering of light. A glimmer of hope came across Henry's face.
"Is that?... It cannot be..." Henry said to himself as he walked faster toward the light.
Henry approached the source of the shimmering light carefully and cautiously; he did not want to end up surprising any more of those monsters today.
Even this early in the morning in September, the sun could still be blinding.
As he gets closer to the edge of the protection of the woods, he has to bring his hand up to block some of the rays of the sun. Coming into the sunshine after being in the shaded comfort of the woods makes his eyes have a hard time adjusting to the light.
Henry took a step backwards once he was able to see what was before him.
All he could see was bodies slumped over on the ground.
He had walked into a war zone in the middle of an athletic complex. The sunlight had bounced off the glass siding of the building. The athletic complex, built in the last few years, with funding from the mill and the city; they had wanted a place where all the town could come to exercise together. The main building had a running track and hockey rink; there were three soccer fields, and a baseball field on this side of the building and the other end had a dog park and a place for skateboarding.
Scattered all over the fields were bodies of teenagers and college kids in team uniforms and pieces of bodies of other people, whom Henry had guessed turned into monsters and tried to eat them.
Seeing so many people in one location took it's toll on his emotions, which he had been trying to keep in check this entire time.
On the soccer field to his left, Henry could see the body of the team's goaltender in a few pieces in the back of the net and all over the field, he could see the bodies of most of the teams. There were even a few bones, or pieces of them, in the stands who were watching the game cheering for their kids.
A tear came to Henry's eye; he wiped it away quickly as if he was worried that someone was going to see him crying.
Henry looked to the right at the baseball field and seen a completely different story.
Henry could see bats, gloves, and a few uniform shirts littered around the area. He looked around the area some more hoping to get a better idea of what had happened.
Instead of a dead team, the field littered with a few bodies of people dressed in dirty clothes and an occasional limb. It was as if both teams came to the rescue of their downed teammate but did not make it in time. Henry had wondered what truly happened on that field that made it so much different than everywhere else.
Looking through the parking lot, Henry could see the same results that he saw down on Water Street; death was everywhere. Cars were overturned, on fire or left abandoned with their doors open and a bloodstain in front of the open door. Bodies were on the hoods and roofs of cars, squished between walls, barricades and a runaway car.
He stood there for a few more minutes, making sure he did not see any movement at all before he ventured out to find someplace safe. He decided that he could not go back towards the way he came in fear of running into more of the monsters that would have followed him into the woods. From here the woods curved along the fields before reaching the road on either side of him. The safety of the woods was over; Henry had to venture back out into the town.
If he was going to venture out into a large open space, Henry decided that he needed to have some weapon to defend himself. He was sure that he could outrun any danger encountered, but running is only going to carry him part of the way before he collapses from exhaustion and hunger.
"I'll probably find something to use on the baseball field. Hopefully, someone dropped a bat." He said to himself.
Henry cautiously stepped out of the woods, keeping an ear out for any new sounds.
After every step forward he would always pause to listen and watch for danger before going forward again. He had gone about a dozen steps before he was satisfied that there was no immediate threat in the area.
"It's way too quiet around here. At least I know that the monsters are gone, they certainly do not know how to keep quiet." Henry thought. "Now, there must be something I can use."
Henry started walking towards the baseball field in hopes of finding a leftover weapon that he could use.
As he stepped over and around the bodies that covered the outfield, he tried not to look at the faces of the dead. He did not want to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out who everyone was and what they used to do with their life that would make them turn into these things.
The only time he paid any attention to a body was when he came across a little old lady dressed in her Sunday best. He started to shed a little tear remembering his family that was over 350 kilometres away. With a quick glance he would have thought that she was just innocent in all of this, after a more careful look, he noticed that the woman had bits of hair and flesh all over her face and an arm from a dead person clutched in her hand. Her dress had been tattered and ripped; she looked as though she savagely attacked before she became a monster.
He reached out with his foot and nudged the woman with his toe. Her limp body rattled back and forth from the force of his foot, Henry gagged and turned away quickly. As the woman rolled back, her momentum carried her to her back, and Henry caught a glimpse of her disfigured face after someone had beaten this old lady.
He spat on the ground next to his feet, "I don't think I can handle this." He said as he wiped the spit from his mouth with the back of his hand. He absentmindedly rubbed his hand on his pants and continued.
He put the image for the old lady to the back of his mind and took a few steps forward towards the centre of the field. He hesitated near the woman and was listening for distant noises and missed the sound that was close to him.
While Henry was looking off in the distance, the eyes of the old lady snapped open after she caught a scent of him in his near panicked state. The woman reached towards his ankle.
Henry could have heard the warning growl but the old ladies vocal cords was damaged when she took a baseball bat to the throat in the battle earlier in the day.
She would have gotten up if she could, but neither her arms and her legs worked properly after being dislocated or torn off. She had to rely on using her neck muscles to pull her lifeless body along the ground. Her mouth opened and closed with eager hunger.
Henry jumped back in surprise at seeing the woman straining trying to reach him with her tongue to get a taste of him.
The woman was almost close enough to Henry reach for his shoe when he came back to reality and noticed how close she had gotten to him.
/> He looked at her as she pulled herself along closer to him.
Henry pulled his foot back as he took pity on the woman, "No one is safe from this are they?"
He took a couple of steps away from her and shuddered at the thought of how this woman is going to survive being unable to move.
Wiping his face on his sleeve, Henry looked off towards the end of the parking lot as he was starting to head towards the dugout when he saw someone moving in the distance. He watched the person with considerable interest as they progressed on their journey, their movements were slow and deliberate, and it made it hard to determine if it was another monster or not. They were looking directly at the ground as they walk, which could have been a teenager lost in their thoughts, oblivious to everything that was happening around them.
He put his foot down so that he could rest on the balls of his feet in case he needed to run at the slightest threat of danger.
Henry sighed with relief as the person in the distance moved to the other side of the building.
"Phew! That could have been bad." Henry said out loud.
He started forward on his journey now that the danger moved on. He tried to lift his foot and fell to the ground.
Henry looked down at his foot, trying to figure out what had happened and noticed the barred teeth of the paralysed old lady looking back at him.
Henry shouted with surprise. Off in the distance birds flew from the trees startled by the sudden noise after hours of total quiet.
He kicked out his leg trying to free himself from the woman trying to climb his leg using only her chin. Using his other foot he kicked out towards the woman as she was about to take a bite from him.
The heel of his foot connected with the woman's forehead and nose. Her nose shattered with an audible pop. Henry expected to see blood gushing from her nose and water streaming out of her eyes in a natural body reaction, something he had seen countless times watching the martial arts fights on pay-per-view.
A look of horror came across his faces as none of those things happened to the old lady. Apart from knocking her head backwards, she showed no sign or pain or agony despite being crippled.
Henry kicked at the woman again and again. Trying to find a way to make her stop moving and wanting to eat him. With one final kick, he managed to put enough power behind it to snap her neck backwards until the back of her head almost touched her shoulder blades. The lady's head lolled forward, and her chin rested on the ground beside him.
Henry let out a huge sigh of relief and rolled his shoulders backwards.
Remembering the danger, he was in just moments ago, Henry pushed himself away from the old lady before looking for any cuts and retying his shoes in a secure double knot.
Henry pushed himself up and looked around, with all of the commotions from the last few minutes he had no idea if anything or anyone had heard what was happening.
Satisfied that nothing else was moving, Henry proceeded to jog into the middle of the baseball field so that he could be closer to looking for a weapon so that he could feel a little more secure out in the open like this.
Henry approached the first dugout with caution; it was almost empty except a few bodies strewn about in various pieces.
He looked cautiously at the other dugout and noticed it was a little cleaner with only two bodies at the far end. The first body was that of a woman dressed for work laying on her face against the chain link fence. The second body was that of a younger man, maybe in his twenties wearing a baseball uniform, he was sitting with is back against the seat of the bench looking out towards the field. Behind that body was what he was seeking.
Henry ran across the infield almost at a sprint and rounded the fence when he stopped in his tracks. The lone body in the dugout was following him with its eyes. The corpse tried to open it's mouth and grown, but it was missing the lower portion of its jaw. Nothing else on the body was moving other than it's eyes, from what he's seen thus far when someone is near one of these monsters they do everything in their power to get at them.
"You're not dangerous at all are you? You little bastard." Henry said as he approached him.
Henry kicked out at the monsters feet trying to encourage him to move if he could. He jumped back instinctively.
He placed his back against the chain link fence of the dugout and slid across the wall putting as much distance between himself and the monster, just in case. The chain link fence plunked as it rubbed across his body, echoing a little around the parking lot.
On the other side, near the man's hand, Henry saw what he needed, a slightly dented and dirty Louisville Slugger aluminium baseball bat. A smile crept across the man's face as he watched him with hunger.
"Do not try anything.... or you'll regret it." Henry pointed his finger at the man who was watching his every move with keen interest.
Henry kept his eyes on the man as he slowly bent down and towards the bat. The man was looking at Henry with as much interest. His fingers brushed against the handle of the bat, but it rolled away with a noticeable ringing sound.
Henry looked down at the bat and reached toward the bat.
It was then that the man lunged at Henry, grabbing at his arm and pulling himself on Henry.
"Argh!" Henry yelled surprised at the sudden attack.
"Get off of me." He pushed the man attempting to get him to release the grip on his arm.
Henry tried to keep himself upright, pulling away from the man's grasp.
Henry realised he did not have the strength in his arm to push the man off of him, while he was off balance himself.
He looked over at the bat, which had appeared to roll further away in the scuffle.
The man was pulling himself towards Henry's chest. This guy was not interested in just taking a bite from him; he seemed to want to do more damage than that, even without his lower jaw Henry knew this man was dangerous.
Henry stretched for the bat. It was just out of his reach; his fingers caressed the round, smooth nub of the bat. It rolled slightly away at his touch and hit a rock. The rock was large enough that it caused the bat to roll back towards Henry.
"Ah ha! Got it!" Henry gasped as he firmly gripped the bat and raised it in the air.
He brought the bat down as hard as he could and hit the man squarely in the back between the shoulder blades. His body slumped down a little from the pressure of the strike, but he continued his progress.
Henry hit the man again, hitting him in the shoulder with the handle of the bat.
He had a hard time breathing as the man had climbed onto his chest and sat upright.
The man sat on top of Henry's chest, with his knee planted firmly on Henry's cheek squeezing the breath from his lungs.
Using the last of his energy and strength, Henry took one final swing at the jawless man sitting on him and connected with the side of the man's head and neck.
The shock from being hit threw the man from on top of Henry, and he stuck the side of the dugout, sliding to the ground. A trail of flesh and congealed blood showed his path.
Henry rolled onto his side and took in a large breath of fresh air. He exhaled and took another.
A quick look at the other man put fear back into Henry's heart. The man was already sitting up and crawling towards Henry again.
Henry stood up in the dugout and was still panting trying desperately to catch his breath.
The man began to stand up. Henry kicked out at him catching him in the shoulder. The man fell over backwards while trying to grab hold of Henry's foot.
Henry stood over the man and placed his foot on his chest.
"How does this feel?" He said as he stood on the man's chest. Henry heard all of the air forced from his lungs. A slight gurgle escaped the man's throat. "It really sucks, when you're trying to breathe but you just cannot."
"Uh!" Henry grunted as he swung the bat as his downed opponent. Catching him squarely in the ribs, shattering some with an audible crack.
"Do not. Mess. With. Me." He kept swinging at the man hitting him all over his body. In the ribs, the shoulders, the head.
With every swing, Henry's arms grew tired, and still, the man continued to reach and grab for Henry.
Henry screamed one final grunt as the bat connected with the site of the man's head and caved it in. Blood squirted from the hole and across the cement floor of the dugout.
Henry pulled the bat from inside the man's head and wretched at the sight of brains on the baseball bat.
He turned and threw up a little on the wooden bench. What little was left in Henry's stomach was now on the bench and dripping onto the floor. The dripping of bile and stomach acid masked the scent of death that was radiating from the baseball field.
Henry dropped the baseball bat from his hands and started to walk towards the exit of the dugout.
"I might need that later." He said.
Turning around and seeing the man that he killed, Henry began to feel a little light-headed at the sight of him. He still could not believe that he took a man's life. How could he explain that to the police? The man was not much of a threat; he was missing his jaw after all.
Henry bent down to pick up the bat, being careful to keep an eye on the man's lifeless body. "You never know when someone you think is dead is going to reach out and grab you. What else can happen today?"
He grabbed hold of the handle of the bat and picked it up.
Turning the bat around in his hand and winced at the sight of the blood and brain matter on the end of it. Henry took the end of the bat and wiped the blood and brains on the shirt of the dead man.
Henry walked out of the dugout and back onto the field.
He looked around for a place to rest; he was getting tired and hungry by this point. After using up all of his energy fighting off the dead man, he could use a little rest.
Off in the distance, a few streets over Henry saw something useful.
Three blocks over and on the other side of the inner-city highway were the Wholesale store. A modern day fortress in times such as these. When most stores opted for the modern aesthetics of big windows showcasing the merchandise the Wholesale store chose to hide it's merchandise behind barred windows and doors only allows those with a membership access to its vast collection of items. The main entrance that was typically closed with a heavy metal gate most of the time. The store did not open until 10:30, so he knew that he had time to get over there and hope that the security was still in place.
Henry could not think of a better place to go and hide out and get a little rest and food. He was pretty sure they had their generator too, so they might even have a bit of power.
Henry started off towards the store, unsure if he should take the direct route and cross the sometimes extremely busy highway or take the safer path along the sidewalks. The safer way thought Henry should be the direct one, less chance of running into these monsters.
He walked towards the parking lot.
Off in the distance, the mechanic altered his course and began his journey up a little hill towards the noises that he was hearing. A dozen of his friends who had been hearing the same noises turned to follow him as well.